Rep. Ted Lieu Plays Candace Owens' Hitler Remarks During White Nationalism Hearing
During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday where conservative commentator Candace Owens testified, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) made waves when he played a 2018 recording of Owens arguing that what Adolf Hitler practiced wasn’t really “nationalism.”
Republicans had invited Owens to the hearing, which was about the rising tide of white nationalism and hate crimes. The Fox News contributor used her time to talk about everything from Brexit to anti-fascist activists. She also claimed that discussing white nationalism at all is simply a Democratic ploy to win elections.
“The hearing today isn’t about white nationalism, it’s a preview of a Democrat 2020 election strategy, same as the 2016 election strategy,” Owens said. “If they were really concerned about white nationalism, they’d hold hearings on antifa.”
When Lieu spoke, he took a moment to remind everyone of comments Owens made a few months ago about Hitler.
“In congressional hearings, the minority party gets to select its own witnesses. And of all the people that Republicans could have selected, they picked Candace Owens,” Lieu said.
“I don’t know Miss Owens. I’m not going to characterize her. I’m going to let her own words do the talking,” he went on. “I’m going to play for you the first 30 seconds of a statement she made about Adolf Hitler.” Lieu then pressed play on a video of Owen speaking at an event with Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk in December.
.@TedLieu just played Candace Owens' comments on Hitler and nationalism during the hearing on white nationalism.
She looks less than pleased. pic.twitter.com/AwOLiGhQkK— jordan (@JordanUhl) April 9, 2019
At that event, as heard in Lieu’s video, Owens said she didn’t “have any problems at all with the word ‘nationalism.’”
“Whenever we say nationalism, the first thing people think about, at least in America, is Hitler,” she said in December. “The problem is that he wanted — he had dreams outside of Germany. He wanted to globalize. He wanted everybody to be German, everybody to be speaking German. Everybody to look a different way.”
“That’s not, to me, that’s not nationalism,” she went on. “In thinking about how we could go bad down the line, I don’t really have an issue with nationalism. I really don’t. I think that it’s OK.”
Here is video of Candace Owens' full answer on nationalism and Hitler pic.twitter.com/NfBvoH8vQg
— John Whitehouse (@existentialfish) February 8, 2019
After Lieu played the video, he asked Owen’s co-panelist, Anti-Defamation League executive Eileen Hershenov: “So, when people try to legitimize Adolf Hitler, does that feed into white nationalist ideology?”
Hershenov told Lieu that “it does.” She said that while “Mrs. Owens distanced herself from those comments later,” the League “expressed great concern over the original comments.”
Owens, when given an opportunity to respond, said “it’s pretty apparent that Mr. Lieu believes that black people are stupid and will not pursue the full clip in its entirety.”
“He purposely presented an extracted clip... He’s trying to present as if I was launching a defense of Hitler in Germany,” she said. “I do not believe that we should be characterizing Hitler as a nationalist. He was a homicidal, psychopathic maniac that killed his own people. A nationalist would not kill their own people.”
She said that Lieu playing the clip was “unbelievably dishonest,” and that she was “deeply offended by the insinuation of revealing that clip without the question that was asked of me.”
Candace Owens: "I think it's pretty apparent that Mr. Lieu believes that black people are stupid and will not pursue the full clip…That was unbelievably dishonest…I'm deeply offended by the insinuation of revealing that clip without the question that was asked of me." pic.twitter.com/UioMSZK93d
— CSPAN (@cspan) April 9, 2019
Lieu and Owens’ exchange received a lot of attention on Twitter, both positive and negative:
This is the new face of “ I did Nazi that coming”@tedlieupic.twitter.com/Q6FyKMlCp4
— ALT-immigration “immigration deepness” (@ALT_uscis) April 9, 2019
When you arguing with bae and they actually pull out the receipts pic.twitter.com/tHVrjalpGW
— hardlyparty (@hardlyparty) April 9, 2019
Dear @tedlieu -
This is a disgusting attempt to destroy a good person.
You don't honestly believe that @RealCandaceO was supportive of Hitler; all you're trying to do is to smear her name.
You should be ashamed of yourself. https://t.co/m3dubaKzBv— PragerU (@prageru) April 9, 2019
.@tedlieu You are doing the Lord's work. Thank you, sir.
— Blocka Khan (@Starr_Rocque) April 9, 2019
Okay @RealCandaceO speak truth to power and set the record straight while @tedlieu sits in silence knowing he was dead wrong. https://t.co/FOrhLIIXnc
— PARIS (@PARISDENNARD) April 9, 2019
Bravo! @tedlieu
Candace Owens pic.twitter.com/TU9R48fNok— Marc Sussman (@MarcSussman5) April 9, 2019
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.